Death of the Strong Man

Lobster Issue 17 (1988) £££

The channels for US covert military aid to the Afghan mojahedin have been thrown into disarray by the death on August 17 [1988] of President Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan in an aircrash unexplained as we went to press. His death came at a particularly sensitive moment as the Soviet occupation forces prepared to withdraw and … Read more

An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King

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Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King William Pepper London: Verso, 2003, £17, h/b   William Pepper has solved the King assassination. He hasn’t quite got enough to name the shooter but he has laid bare the conspiracy. It has taken him 20 years. Is there a comparable piece of research by … Read more

Letter from America: CIA set for Pentagon buyout?

Lobster Issue 30 (December 1995) £££

CIA set for Pentagon buyout? Lester Coleman, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) man who co-authored Trail of the Octopus (about CIA drug-channel involvement in the Lockerbie bombing) writes in the latest Unclassified (quarterly publication of the Association of Former National Security Alumni, no. 34, Fall 1995), that the CIA feels itself threatened by a DIA … Read more

The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2001

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Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

Gore Vidal London: Abacus, 2002, £10.99, p/b   Once upon a time collections of essays by Gore Vidal would appear every few years or so in this country in those neat little Panther paperbacks: On Our Own Now (1976), Matters of Fact and of Fiction (1978), Pink Triangle and Yellow Star (1982) for example. The … Read more

Mind control and microwave update

Lobster Issue 24 (December 1992) £££

The story ‘The lethal bomb that does not kill’ (Daily Telegraph 27 September 1992) proves that there is military interest in this country in microwaves. The story itself is a plant from the Ministry of Defence. Its purpose is unknown. In the United States the microwave/mind control subject has been taken up by the Association … Read more

Kincoragate: parapolitics

Lobster Issue 6 (1984) £££

Parapolitics: “Generally, covert politics, the conduct of public affairs not by rational debate and responsible decision-making but by indirection, collusion and deceit.” – Peter Dale Scott The Watergate tag is appropriate to Kincora because, like that epic affair, an initial minor offence was the key that unlocked many secret doors. As James Angleton noted: “A … Read more

Friends of the British Secret State

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

William Massie With Chapman Pincher retired from the Express group of newspapers, somebody had to take up his position as the spooks’ number one outlet. That person appears to be one William Massie. His name has appeared on some interesting material recently: viz: 14th February 1988, front page story in the Sunday Express based on … Read more

Our Friends in the North West: The Owen Oyston Affair

Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997) £££

The Oyston Affair appears to have been the longest and most expensive privately-funded political dirty tricks campaign in recent British history. The astonishing 15-year campaign waged against Owen Oyston by Michael Murrin, the owner of a fish and chip shop in the village of Longridge, Lancs, was backed by help and cash payments raised by … Read more

Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust, and, US Intelligence and the Nazis

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8) £££

Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust Ed. David Bankier New York: Enigma Books, 2006. p/b, $23 US Intelligence and the Nazis Richard Breitman et al New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p/b, £16.99   On 11 January 1943, the British intercepted ‘one of the most extraordinary messages’ of the war at Bletchley Park: it referred ‘to … Read more

A vote in the can is worth two for George Bush

Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

The apparent re-election of George W. Bush as US President seems to have its roots in a mechanical failure. On 12 March 2004, a car went out of control on a busy highway and propelled itself in front of an 18-wheeler. The driver – an African-American clergyman called Athan Gibbs – was killed outright. Gibbs, … Read more

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